Threshold
by ImpalaLove
Summary: Pre-series. "John knew this would be a rough hunt, had planned accordingly. But it doesn't stop the exhaustion from pooling and growing inside his limbs, weighing him down."


**Pre-series story. That's really all you need to know going in. Been a while since I've posted, so just stretching my legs a bit.**

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 **Threshold**

It's been a long day. Scratch that.

It's been a long two and a half weeks.

John knew this would be a rough hunt, had planned accordingly. But it doesn't stop the exhaustion from pooling and growing inside his limbs, weighing him down. The poorly-treated slice over his left bicep and down across his torso probably isn't helping too much either, especially since no matter how he had slung his bag across his body on the walk back to the car, he could feel the tug and pull of broken skin. On top of that, it's been a long drive back to his boys.

He wants, more than anything, to see their faces. It's all he's been thinking about for the last hundred miles or so, after the leftover adrenaline of the hunt had finally worked its way out of his body through the foot pressed firmly on the gas pedal. It worries him, sometimes, how little he cares for anything in those moments when it's just him and the road and so many endless miles and the satisfaction of knowing there's another monster gone from the world, still burning behind him.

He wonders if it is pure selfishness that has him going back for more, seeking out hunt after hunt, or if it is something deeper- an undercurrent of knowing that the more time he spends away from Dean and Sam, the better it might be for them.

The air outside the car is cold, and John doesn't want to be out in it quite yet, so he kills the engine and lets himself sit for a minute as it cools. If it were the Impala, he's certain Dean, Sam, and Bobby would've heard him pull up into the drive, but she's sitting a few paces away under a tarp, requested tuneup already completed. John knows this without asking, just like he knows that his boys have been well taken care of for these last few weeks. John rolls his head back against the unfamiliar seat, breathing out a long sigh that irritates his injury. He'd been lucky to walk away from this new monster, with its inhuman speed and sharp claws. Had to make a new journal entry about it, complete with a poorly-drawn picture of a long-fingered half-man. _Wendigo_ , as they call it.

After a while, the car is too cold to stay. After a while, it's time for John to go inside, hug his boys, get reamed out by Bobby about not treating his wound correctly, and then fall into bed and pass out so that Bobby can redress it while he sleeps.

The air is just as frigid as he knew it would be, biting at his ears the moment he steps ungracefully from the car. The interior of the Ford is a little smaller than he's used to, and he almost smacks his head against the top of the car, feels his hair brushing past it. Another lucky miss in a history of lucky misses.

His bag is slung over his shoulder all wrong again and it's pulling at his cut all wrong again but he's walking towards Bobby's front steps and he hears Sam's laughter drifting through the thin walls. He stops at the threshold and listens, disregarding the cold wind nipping at his face.

There are voices, but John can only hear muffled murmurs through the door. He can easily distinguish Bobby's gruff overtones, but the boys are harder to tell apart. He stands outside for a long time, just listening to the humming of their indistinguishable conversation filling up the walls of Bobby's house.

They're so young, his boys. Dean just shy of eight years old and Sammy filled with a four-year-old's innocent fury. But John hears him laugh again, and the sound is so lovely filtering into his quickly reddening ears. His hand is on the doorknob. All he has to do is turn it and walk inside and see those faces he's been wanting to see.

But he doesn't. He waits, and he thinks.

They're so young.

So durable at this age, their minds constantly adapting to new environments and situations. People think of kids as fragile, but John knows that's not true. He's seen the way Dean looks at him sometimes, a deep sadness that shouldn't belong to him evident in his deep, green eyes. _You alright, Dad?_ he'll say, and it's obvious that he's thinking of Mary, of the mother he remembers just enough to miss in some unfathomable way. John thinks of Sam, building towers out of Legos only to knock them down and rebuild them again. The structures he makes always get sturdier the second, third, sixtieth time around.

They could make it without him, he knows.

And if he leaves now, maybe he can save them.

His breath is puffing out into the open air, thin and misty like cigarette smoke. He is quite literally standing on the threshold of something, and he's only just realized the significance of it. His body has gone numb, but it isn't just from the cold. He glances back at the Impala where it sits beneath the tarp. The keys will be in the glovebox, just like they always are after Bobby fixes her up. He wouldn't even have to go inside. He wouldn't even have to tell them goodbye. It would be the best way to do it, for all of them.

He lets his fingers fall from the doorknob. He takes one step backwards, off the top step of the porch. He stares up at the big, wooden siding of Bobby's house, the faded blue paint with patches of white splattered over it like a Jackson Pollock. Bobby isn't exactly the picture of normal, but still. There's a life here inside this house, something his boys haven't really known. But they could. They _could,_ if he just let them.

John loves his boys, and they love him. But for how much longer? Kids give love so freely, so easily. Eventually they'll grow up, though.

Eventually they'll know better.

The duffle bag filled with weapons that kill monsters shifts against John Winchester's bad side. He winces and glances over at the Impala again.

He twists the doorknob to Bobby Singer's house and walks inside.

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 **A/N: I've been bingeing Sons of Anarchy lately and this idea comes up a lot- this concept that maybe kids of these parents who have chosen questionable lifestyles would be better off without them. The idea struck me, and of course I had to spin it to Supernatural, and lo and behold, this is what happened.**


End file.
